Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Hansard source

I'm just trying to quote a bloke, Mr Speaker. The member for Bradfield said:

It is extraordinarily difficult to understand how anybody could imagine that this is going to be anything other than a spectacular financial disaster.

That's what he said 10 years ago. He's nodding! They say the same thing today. So devoid of imagination are they that they say the same thing today about the National Reconstruction Fund.

The CFC has invested $11.7 billion in projects worth $42 billion. Every dollar the CFC has invested has leveraged $2.6 of private sector investment. It has created thousands of jobs, produced 5.2 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity and reduced emissions by 240 million tonnes. But apart from that it has been an utter and complete disaster! The member for Bradfield had a point! This is what you get when you have an opposition so devoid of their own ideas, so devoid of a constructive approach and so devoid of acting in the national interest that they just oppose. They opposed it 10 years ago. They tried for years to abolish it and they failed. Now they are trying to stop the next phase, the National Reconstruction Fund. This is what you get when you have a leader of the opposition who is all opposition and no leader.

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